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If you’ve spent any amount of time on the Internet, and I’ll assume you have, you’ve likely stumbled across something that seems to be all the rage these days. It’s called High Dynamic Range photography, or HDR for short, and, if nothing else, you know it looks cool. But it’s not something your camera can do on its own, no no, it needs help. But which software to choose? There are numerous applications and plug-ins available, but I found three that help you make HDR images quickly and easily. They are, in no particular order, Hydra, Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Photomatix. Let’s get right to it.

If you don’t already know, HDR images are made by taking a composite of the best information contained within numerous images. Most often, this is done by using a tripod and taking somewhere between two and five images at different exposures in the hopes of capturing detail from the darkest to the brightest portions of your scene.  It helps if your subject isn’t moving, which is why you see this process used on landscapes and inanimate objects 99% of the time. You’ll get the best results from high contrast scenes, so don’t waste your time on normal shots.

What you’ll need

Before we get to the software, you’re going to need a few other things to get started with HDR photography. First and most obviously, a camera. Surprisingly, you don’t actually need a DSLR, though you’ll get better results since they take higher quality images even if at lower megapixels. A point and shoot will still work though; I know this, because I’ve tried. Inevitably, you will become frustrated with the quality of your images and at some point you’ll cave on a DSLR. Mark my words, I’ve held out as long as I could, but this will happen to me shortly. In the meantime, you can also do yourself a huge favor by getting a tripod. You should be using a tripod every chance you get to take great photos anyway, so it’s not like you’re wasting money. And one last thing, you’ll need a subject. While you can apply the HDR technique to any subject, it works best when there are varying amounts of light where you won’t be able to capture detail in both the brightest and darkest portions of the image with one shot. Bright and diverse colors usually earn you extra points too, but are not completely necessary. On to the software!

Software

Hydra
Developer: Creaceed
Price: $79.95
Version Reviewed: 2.0.1

Hydra is probably the youngest of the software included in this shootout. It functions as both a standalone application and a plug-in for Aperture (I wonder why not Photoshop?). It does the same thing in both places, so this isn’t a reason to splurge on Aperture if you haven’t already.

Hydra has a very slick user interface.  It’s the sort of thing you almost come to expect out of a Mac-only product.  It will accept images straight from iPhoto of off of your hard drive, or you can just drag them on top of the app.  It also has a flashy 3D way of showing you your pictures that looks nice, but is completely unnecessary.  After you load your pics, you can tweak a few things, like contrast, temperature and sharpness.  Next, you’ll have to align the images, just in case your tripod didn’t stay exactly still.  There is an auto aligner, but it doesn’t work very well.  In fact, even if your images were taken on a tripod that was essentially motionless, don’t be surprised if the program gets confused and throws out one or more of the images.  I spent a number of nights pulling my hair out trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.  I really think the alignment algorithm needs some work.

Since the auto align rarely worked for me, I chose to manually align my images. This proved to be quite difficult as well, considering the program insists on trying to auto align them, anyway.  So, when you click to add an alignment point, it doesn’t just put the point at the same coordinates on each images, it tries to guess where the same spot is on each.  And most of the time, it was wrong.  But after fighting with it, I ended up with aligned images, more or less.

Finally, we come to the real functionality of this program, merging.  You have three options: compression, local adaptation and perceptive.  You’ll have to play with the options in each one to decide which you like the best for each project.  I also had some difficulty with this part of the program.  There just seems to be some polish missing.  It’s not as easy as it should be, in my opinion, to get compelling results.  That doesn’t mean that you can’t get great result; their website is a showcase to just what can be done with the app.  There are plenty of amazing pictures there, I just wish it was easier.

Adobe Photoshop CS4
Developer: Adobe
Price: $699
Version Reviewed: 11.0

Photoshop’s “Merge to HDR” option has been available for a couple of releases now, but it’s never been the holy grail of HDR software.  Nevertheless, if you are serious about digital image manipulation, then you’re likely to already own Photoshop, and there’s nothing wrong with using what you already have.

After you launch Merge to HDR from the File - Automate menu, you’ll be prompted for some images.  Then Photoshop will look like it’s having a seizure.  Just hold on, it’s fine, really.  Then you’ll get a super plain window with minimal options.  You can set the white point with a slider, so slide until it looks nice.  Then just click OK.

Photoshop merges your files together, and now you have an HDR.  Super, right?  Well, before you call it a day and decide that Photoshop is terrible at making HDR images, go to menu bar and click on Image - Mode - 16 bit.  Here’s where you’ll find the controls that are similar to what we found in Hydra.  You have to pick one set of options form the following list: Exposure and Gamma, Highlight Compression, Equalize Histogram, and Local Adaptation.  The first and the last options mentioned actually have sliders for you to tweak, while the middle two are automated.

Photoshop is still a little short on options relating to HDR, but then again, it’s Photoshop.  There are so many other things that you can do to your HDR image after you’ve merged it, that it doesn’t really need to have a ton of specific options.  So, you won’t get stunning HDR images straight from the HDR merge command, but it gives you a great starting point for the rest of Photoshop, which is really what it’s meant to do.

Photomatix Pro
Developer: HDR soft
Price: $99
Version Reviewed: 3.1.3

Photomatix Pro is pretty much known as the benchmark against which all other HDR apps are tested.  It starts out just like the rest, with importing your pictures.  Here you’ll find options for aligning your images and correcting minor issues.  They are all fully automated, so you just hit the check boxes of your choosing and away you go.  It can even handle images that are slightly rotated from each other, though Hydra claims this feature as well.  Needless to say, your mileage may vary.  After you are done with the preliminary options, hit Generate HDR.

As the software states, your monitor is likely not capable of accurately displaying an HDR image, which is why you have to do some Tone Mapping.  That’s fine, since we’ve tone mapped with the other two apps a few times already anyway.  You get to choose between Detail Enhancer and Tone Compressor.  Basically, you have a number of sliders that you’ll mess with until you have a nice result.  I’d go through all of the details, but it’s really just that, you have to play around until you like what you get.

What I really like about Photomatix Pro is how easy it really is to get a dramatic result.  It only took me a few minutes to get images that I really liked.  There’s just something about this program.  I don’t know what it is, but it just works the way its supposed to.  Images are easy to merge and manipulate, and the program naturally does the things you want it to do to the images.  I don’t know how it does it, but I’m glad that it does.

Results

So, what follows are the images that were output from each HDR application.  I should probably note that the images used to make these HDR images came from some sample files from Photomatix Pro.  You could argue that this would give them an advantage, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.  And besides, all three programs should be able to produce similar results to each other, at least that’s what they want us to think.  Still, you can judge for yourself which version looks best to you.  Remember, this is not necessarily representative of the full capabilities of each application, but they do represent the best that I could achieve with a reasonable amount of effort.

Which one do you think looks best?

Conclusion

All three applications merged images together and produced pictures that were better than the individual pieces from which they were made.  I found Hydra to be a little hard to use, especially in regards to aligning images.  I also found the merging options slightly dissappointing.  It took everything I had to not put that file through Photoshop and make it look better.  Photoshop’s HDR options are pretty basic, but if you’ve already purchased Photoshop, I don’t see a compelling reason to buy anything else unless HDR is your thing.  It won’t make the best HDR images with it’s HDR command, but there are so many other options and corrections you can apply, that you’ll likely end up in the same place with some practice.  Photomatix Pro is without a doubt the best HDR package I’ve seen.  From importing, to merging and tweaking, everything works the way you want it to.  There are qualities about this program that I just can’t put my finger on that make it so incredibly enjoyable to use.  It does things to your images that you want it to, and you’ll get dramatic results with minimal effort.  It’s not hard for me to recommend this software since it’s so awesome.

Product:

• Hydra
• Photoshop CS4
• Photomatix Pro